But all this time corrections were slowly springing up. Hundreds were beginning, under the light of a more liberal diffusion of general knowledge, to feel that the so-called Science of medicine and surgery was very different from science usually so termed; and, whilst other sciences were affording that which was definite and positive, the juxtaposition only seemed to bring out in higher relief the prevailing character of conjecture and uncertainty in medicine.
People began to see that, in mere human occupation, mystery is but mystery, to whatever it is applied; and that one man can see in the dark about as well as another; that, where all is obscure, any one may scramble with a chance of success. Accordingly, we observe that a state of things has gradually been rising up, which, if it do not justify the expression of quot medici tot empirici, at least leads us to deplore that, of all callings in life, no one had ever such a legion of parasites as are represented by the hydra-headed quackeries which infest the medical profession. Naturally enough, too, Quackery attacked chiefly those disorders in regard to which Mystery avowed its incapacity, or declared to be incurable; and thus, while the regular profession made their own limited knowledge the measures of the powers of nature, the quacks unconsciously proceeded, de facto, more philosophically, when they neither avowed nor acknowledged any other limits than those of observation and experience.
Amongst, no doubt, innumerable failures, and, as we know, a multiplicity of fictions, they would now and then, in acting violently on the various organs, blunder on the last link in the chain—the immediate cause of the disorder; and perhaps effect the removal of a so-called incurable malady. Thus, whilst the regular profession were making their own knowledge the measure of remedial possibility, and were reposing contentedly on the rule, they were every now and then undermined, or tripped up, by unexplained exceptions.
It is difficult to conceive any state of things, when once observed, more calculated to drive men to the obvious remedy that a definite science would alone afford; nor should it be forgotten that multiform quackeries, with mesmerism to boot, are coincident with a system which allows not one single appointment, which the public are requested to regard as implying authority, to be open to scientific competition. Of late, many persons have begun to examine for themselves questions which they had been wont to leave entirely to their medical adviser.
The sanitary movement has shown that more people die every year from avoidable causes than would satisfy the yawning gulf of a severe epidemic, or the most destructive battle. In a crowded community, many events are daily impressing on the heads of families, besides the expedience of avoiding unnecessary expenses, that long illnesses are long evils; that their dearest connections are sometimes prematurely broken; and that parts are not unfrequently found diseased which are not suspected to be so during life. The thought will sometimes occur whether this may have been always consequent on the difficulty of the subject, or whether it may not have been sometimes the result of too hasty or too restricted an inquiry; that not only (as the Spanish tutor told his royal pupil of kings) do patients die "sometimes," but very frequently.
These and other circumstances have induced many of the public to inquire into the reason of their faith in us; and to ask how it happens that, whilst all other sciences are popularized and progressing, there should be any thing so recondite in the laws governing our own bodies as to be accessible only to comparatively few; especially as they have begun to perceive that their interests, in knowing such laws, is of the greatest possible importance.
Amongst various attempts to better this condition of things, the imagination of men has been very active. Too proud to obey the guidance, or too impatient to await the fruition, of those cautious rules which the intellect has imposed on the one hand, and which have been so signally rewarded (whenever observed) on the other, imagination has set forth on airy wing, and brought home curiosities which she called science, and observations which, because they contained some of that truth of which even fancies are seldom entirely deprived, blinded her to the perception of a much larger portion of error.
Two of these curiosities have made considerable noise, have been not a little damaging to the pecuniary interests of the medical profession, and have been proportionately species of El Dorados to the followers of them. We allude to the so-called Homœopathy and Hydropathy.
Homœopathy proceeds on an axiom that diseases are cured by remedies which excite an action similar to that of the disease itself; "Similia similibus curantur."
Our objection to this dogma is twofold, and, in the few hints we are giving, we wish them not to be confounded.